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Books. Change. Lives.

Copyright © 2023 by Jennie Marts
Cover and internal design © 2023 by Sourcebooks
Cover design by Eileen Carey/No Fuss Design
Cover images ©Rob Lang Photography, Ninestock, Virrage
Images/Shutterstock, GCC Photography/Shutterstock
Internal design by Holli Roach/Sourcebooks
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of
Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing
from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are
used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are
trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their
respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product
or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
 Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11
Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Excerpt from A Cowboy State of Mind

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Back Cover
 This book featuring a hairstylist has to be dedicated to my own
hairstylist heroine:
Melissa Chapman
Hair Therapist Extraordinaire
For the last fourteen years, you’ve cheered on my writing career
while we’ve spent hours talking plots and character motivation in
between laughing, crying, and sharing life wisdom.
You’ve cut and curled and colored my hair,
but most of all you’ve been my friend.
Thank you
 Chapter 1

It had seemed like just another ordinary day at Carley’s Cut & Curl
for salon owner Carley Chapman—until her stylist’s water broke in
the middle of doing a highlight. And then a pissed-off customer
barged in the front door as the salon’s receptionist was helping the
pregnant hairdresser out the back, leaving Carley with a half-finished
perm, an incomplete color, and a brawling catfight as one angry
customer confronted another.
Carley forced her voice to remain calm as she slowly took a step
away from the two women, their faces contorted in rage as one held
her best pair of shears while the other brandished her flat iron like it
was a sword. “Just put the scissors down, Amber,” she said to the
one closest to her. “I’m sure we can work this out.”
Amber Wilcox and Brandi Simms were two of her best customers,
so she didn’t want it to seem like she was taking sides. They each
could be counted on for a regular cut and color appointment every
other month, although Brandi was the bigger tipper. But she didn’t
want to lose either one of them due to anger or a hair-care-tool–
related injury caused by an argument over a man. Especially the
man in question. Buster Jenkins was no prize, and certainly not
worth losing a finger for.
It had happened so fast. Carley was still reeling over Erica, her
stylist, going into labor—she wasn’t due for another week—when
Amber had charged into the salon. The bell over the door was still
jingling as Amber grabbed the shears off the tray, her eyes wild and
flashing with anger. The pink ends of the cape flapped as Brandi
shot out of the chair and grabbed the flat iron from the next station.
“There’s nothing to work out,” Amber said, waving the shears
recklessly through the air. “Except the end of our so-called
friendship. I heard about the way you were flirting with Buster down
at the Creed last night,” she practically spat as she referred to the
Creedence Tavern, one of the town’s most popular restaurant and
pubs. “I ran into Monica Morris in the grocery just now, and she
couldn’t wait to tell me how you belted back three raspberry
margaritas and then tried to turn Taco Tuesday into Topless Tuesday
by claiming the strap of your cheap-ass dress just happened to
break.”
A gasp came from the direction of the hair dryers where two more
of Carley’s regular customers sat. Lyda Hightower, who was married
to the mayor of their small mountain town of Creedence, Colorado,
loved to drop in for a blowout before her numerous charity events,
and Evelyn Chapman, who was not just a customer but also Carley’s
former grandmother-in-law.
The downtown building where her salon was housed and the
adorable eighty-year-old woman were the only things of value Carley
had gotten out of her failed three-year marriage to Paul Chapman,
and Evelyn had a regular Wednesday afternoon appointment for a
weekly wash-and-style and a quarterly perm.
Evelyn, the one getting the permanent that day, sat waiting in the
chair next to Lyda, a magazine in her lap and her head covered in
neat rows of purple rods. She reached over to turn off the other
woman’s hair dryer, presumably to be able to hear better, just as
Lyda was speaking, and her voice carried loudly through the salon.
“I wouldn’t believe a thing that comes out of that woman’s mouth.
Monica loves gossip more than sugar, and I’ve seen that woman
positively inhale the better part of a chocolate cake.”
Brandi ignored the comment as she held her ground, the layers of
foil covering her head flapping as she yelled back. “For your
information, I only had one margarita, the strap of my dress really
did break, and Buster was the one flirting with me.”
“How dare you,” Amber shrieked, flames practically shooting from
her narrowed eyes. “My Buster would never flirt with the likes of
you.”
“Her Buster would flirt with the likes of anything in a skirt,” Lyda
whispered to Evelyn, although everyone in the shop heard.
Before Amber had stormed in, it had been a fairly normal
Wednesday afternoon at the salon. A haircut, a blowout, and a perm
or highlight and cut was an average day for Carley, who had been
running the salon mostly on her own for the last several years. Erica,
already a mother of two, took clients by appointment only and
usually came in a few days a week. Their receptionist, Danielle,
worked the desk a few afternoons after school and did an occasional
shampoo, but that was more as a favor to Dani’s mom, who secretly
paid the bulk of the girl’s salary. But otherwise, Carley ran the shop
herself.
She swept the floors and put the stations back together each
night, so everything was in place and ready when she opened the
door the next morning. She loved walking into the shop and seeing
the black-and-white-checked floors and bubble-gum pink walls with
Paris-themed decorations, the air still carrying the scent of the
lemongrass and eucalyptus candles she burned daily to mask the
smell of some of the stronger hair-care products.
 It was her happy place—where she created beauty and made
others feel good about themselves. Not just through her skills as a
stylist, but also the way she listened and tried to offer helpful advice
when customers shared their problems with her. She loved that her
shop was a haven for sharing and friendship. It meant everything to
her—which is why she’d literally sold her soul to keep it.
She had seen a lot of things in her days as a hairstylist, weeping
hysterics over a color job gone wrong, more Bridezillas than she
could shake a piece of wedding cake at, and had even had a request
to do a cut and curl on a beloved Afghan hound, but this was the
first time she’d seen two women screaming and threatening each
other with her hair tools.
She shifted from one foot to the other, weighing what to do. She
could maybe toss a spare cape over Amber’s head and try to wrestle
the scissors from her. Or an easier, and less dangerous, option might
be to offer them each a free blowout.
Before she had time to decide, the bell of the shop door jangled,
and Deputy Knox Garrison eased in, the worn soles of his cowboy
boots silently sliding across the polished tile floor.
Conversation stopped as every woman turned her attention to the
handsome lawman. Well over six feet tall, he wore jeans and a
neatly pressed light-gray uniform shirt with a shiny gold star pinned
above his chest pocket, his muscled biceps stretching the fabric of
the sleeves. His chiseled jaw was clean-shaven, and his thick, dark
hair curled a little at the nape of his neck, just visible below the rim
of his gray felt Stetson.
Knox tipped his hat, his shoulders loose as he drawled out an easy
greeting. “Afternoon, ladies.” His gaze was sharp as he took in the
scene, but he stayed calm and relaxed as he eased closer to the
women. “I hear there’s a bit of a dustup going on in here.”
 Carley swallowed at the dustup happening inside her—as if three
dozen monarch butterflies had just taken off and were flying around
her stomach like they were trying to get out.
She’d met the tall deputy last month at the Heaven Can Wait Horse
Rescue Ranch where her sister, Jillian, and her ten-year-old nephew,
Milo, volunteered. Then she’d seen him again a few weeks ago, also
at the horse rescue ranch, when her sister married the newly
appointed Sheriff Ethan Rayburn, who she guessed was now Knox’s
boss. Or he would be, after the happy couple returned from their
honeymoon.
No time to think about the dance they’d shared at the wedding or
the harmless flirting or the deep brown color of his eyes that made a
girl want to melt into them. Nope, no time for that. Not when she
had a beauty shop brawl she was trying to contain.
Amber snorted. “There’s no dustup. Nothing for you to worry about
anyway. This is between me and the floozy who’s been hitting on my
man.”
Brandi waved the flat iron like she was conducting an orchestra. “I
was not hitting on anyone. I’d ordered the Nacho Average Nachos
platter—you know the one where they pile the chips and cheese as
tall as your head—and I was reaching across the bar in front of
Buster to grab the hot sauce when my strap broke.”
Knox nodded. “Those nachos are amazing. And in no way average.
Now, I can see how a situation like this could be misunderstood and
certainly upsetting, but I’m still gonna need you each to set down
your weapons and take a step back.”
“And be careful with those scissors, Amber,” Carley said. “Those are
my best shears, and I just got them sharpened last week.”
“They are good shears,” Lyda agreed, nodding toward Evelyn. “She
gave me the wispiest bangs with them last week.”
 Carley glanced at Knox. “I’m serious—those things are razor sharp.
They could probably be classified as a deadly weapon.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said to Carley before addressing the
women again, this time in a slightly more authoritative voice. “Did
you hear that, ladies? You are wielding deadly weapons. Nobody
really wants to kill anyone here, do they?”
Amber’s face paled as she looked down at the scissors. “No, of
course not.”
Whispers of foil sounded as Brandi shook her head. She gingerly
set the flat iron back down on the tray. “I never wanted to hurt
anyone.”
“Me neither.” Amber shoved the scissors onto the stylist station
next to her. They hit a wooden box of hair clips and sent it flying off
the station.
Carley reached for it—the box had been a gift from her
grandmother—but she was too late. She winced as it crashed to the
floor and the hair clips scattered across the linoleum.
“Oh, no,” Amber said, drawing her hands to her mouth. “Sorry
about that.”
Not as sorry as I am. Carley swallowed as she peered down at the
box. The top had broken off in the fall, and several small pieces of
wood had fallen out of the inlaid design on the lid and had slid
across the floor. She pressed her hands to her legs to keep from
dropping onto the floor and collecting the precious pieces. “I’m just
glad no one got hurt,” she forced herself to say. Although she was
glad neither of the women had resorted to using their weapons of
choice.
“Are you going to let this go?” Knox asked Amber. “Or do we need
to go down to the station to discuss this some more?”
“The station?” the two women asked in unison.
 He dipped his chin, his expression stern. “This is a pretty serious
situation. It sounds like threats were made and accusations were
thrown.” He tilted his head toward Brandi. “Are you thinking about
pressing charges?”
Brandi shook her head so hard one of the foils almost broke free.
“Heck no.”
“No? You sure? Even though she came at you with a deadly
weapon?”
“’Course I’m sure. Amber’s my cousin. Our moms would be so mad
if one of us got the other thrown in jail.”
Amber nodded vigorously. “Yeah, they would.”
“Listen, Amber, I’m sorry about all this. That was a cheap-ass
dress. I bought it at the church garage sale for two dollars, and I
swear the strap just broke last night. Thanks to my cravings for
those stupid nachos, the dress was too dang tight, so it’s not like it
fell off or anything—it didn’t even move. And there was no way in
heck I was coming on to Buster. Besides him being your guy, you
know I’ve been in love with Jimmy for just about as long as I can
breathe. There will never be any other guy for me.”
Amber’s shoulders slumped, and she let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah,
all right. Sorry about that. See you at Aunt Suzy’s on Sunday?”
“You know it. Kickoff starts at two, and we haven’t missed a
Broncos game in years. Even though we all know they haven’t been
the same since we lost Peyton Manning.”
A murmur of agreement rippled through the salon.
Amber acted as if she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands, then
finally settled on crossing them over her chest. “You bringin’ your
spinach dip?”
“Always do.”
 “Okay, see you there.” She turned to leave then gazed back at
Knox. “Okay if I just slink out of here with my tail between my legs?”
Knox nodded. “Stay out of trouble, though.” He raised his hand for
a fist bump. “Go Broncos.” Amber offered him a sheepish grin as she
bumped his fist, then slipped out. He ran his glance over the rest of
the salon as if assessing the situation. “Everybody else, okay?
Anybody get hurt?”
“Only my heart,” Carley muttered as she glanced forlornly at the
shattered box.
“Don’t worry,” Knox said, bending down to scoop up the pieces. “I
can fix that.” He gingerly placed the broken pieces of wood inside
the box and carefully set the lid on top.
“No, you don’t have to.”
“It’s no problem. I’ve got woodworking tools in my shop, and I like
to fix stuff.”
“He does,” Lyda Hightower said. “He fixed my back gate just last
week. That last windstorm nearly tore it off its hinges. Which
reminds me, I’ve got a box of Twinkies sitting in the front seat of my
car just in case I ran into you.”
Carley raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Twinkies?”
Knox shrugged and offered her a sheepish grin. “I noticed her gate
was broken on one of my patrols and told her I’d fix it for a box of
Twinkies. I don’t know what it is about the silly things, but I can’t
help it, I love them.”
“My car is unlocked,” Lyda told him. “Just grab them on your way
by.”
“Will do.” He took another step closer and lowered his voice as he
reached into his chest pocket, pulled out a business card, and
passed it to Carley. “My personal cell is written on the back. Call me
if you need anything. Or just text me if you want to talk. Or
whatever.” A slow grin tugged at the corner of his lips. “Although I
have to say this is a pretty elaborate way to get my number.”
He was close enough now that she could smell the woodsy scent
of his aftershave mixed with the starch of his immaculately pressed
uniform shirt, and the combination was causing a stir in places that
hadn’t been stirred in a very long time. “Who says I was trying to
get your number?”
He shrugged. “Maybe I was just hoping you did. I’ve been out to
the horse rescue ranch several times the last few weeks and kept
hoping I’d run into you so I could ask for yours.”
He’d been purposely trying to run into her? That thought both
terrified and excited her. Her ex had done such a number on her,
she’d spent the last several years just trying to reclaim the self-worth
he’d stolen from her and focus on building the business she loved.
She’d worked so hard to gain back her confidence and self-assurance
through creating a place where women felt valued and beautiful,
both inside and out. Dating hadn’t been much of a consideration,
and she wasn’t planning to pursue an actual relationship with
another man for a very long time, if ever.
But that didn’t stop her heart from doing a few extra beats at this
very hot cowboy’s interest.
“That seems like a lot of trouble to go through…” Carley pointed a
finger to the front of the shop, surprised at the coy tone of her
voice…but still using it. “When my number is written on the outside
of that glass in eight-inch-high hot-pink numbers. You probably drive
by it ten times a day. You could’ve called me anytime.”
“Or scheduled a haircut,” Lyda threw in helpfully, then returned her
gaze to the magazine she was pretending to read.
“Yeah, but that would’ve been too easy. I was hoping you’d want
to give it to me.” The playful grin that crossed Knox’s face caused
more stirring, and Carley had to force herself to breathe, and not to
think about the double entendre of that sentence.
“You won’t have any trouble finding her at the horse rescue after
this weekend,” Evelyn offered, not even trying to act like she was
still interested in her magazine. “She’s moving out there this
Saturday.”
Carley shot her a look, but Evelyn ignored it.
“Oh, yeah?” Knox asked. “You need any help? I’ve got Saturday
off, and I’ve got a truck.”
“Everyone around here has a truck.”
“Yeah, but not everyone offers to use them to help people move.”
He flashed her another grin, and the butterflies took off on another
kamikaze flight through her belly. “Don’t you know, you never turn
down an offer to help haul your stuff somewhere new?”
“I appreciate that. I really do.” And she would definitely appreciate
the gun-show his muscles would perform as he moved her things.
“But my sister and her husband get back from their honeymoon on
Friday, and they’re going to help me.”
His shoulders fell just the slightest. “You’ve got my number now, in
case you change your mind. Or just want an extra hand. And that’s
my personal cell on the back.”
“Yes. You mentioned that already.”
“Did I? Well, feel free to call. Or text me. Anytime.”
She looked up at him, not sure what to say next or how to end the
conversation. Should she shake his hand or just go with an awkward
wave?
Before she had time to do either, the timer on her counter went
off, sending a shrill ring through the salon and making her jump. She
snatched up the timer and silenced the ring. “You’re ready for the
sink, Evelyn,” she told the older woman.
 “What about me?” Brandi said, pointing to her foils. “These things
have been on for like twenty minutes now.”
Carley’s eyes widened as she looked from one woman to the other.
“Oh, shoot. I wasn’t thinking you’d both be done at the same time.
I’ve got to get your permanent solution rinsed out…” she said, taking
a step toward Evelyn, then turning back to Brandi. “But if we don’t
get that color solution washed out of your hair soon, you’ll turn into
a bleached blond.”
“That wouldn’t be so terribly bad,” Brandi said, pushing out of the
chair. “I have heard that blonds have more fun. Although that Gina
over at the bowling alley is as blond as they come, and she’s always
in a bad mood.”
“I’d wager that has more to do with having to work in the bowling
alley or being married to that weasel Darryl than the color of her
hair,” Evelyn murmured to Lyda.
Carley hurried to one of the sinks and turned on the tap. “I’ll just
have to try to wash you both at the same time.”
“I can help,” Knox said, setting the wooden box on the counter and
unbuttoning his cuffs.
“You?” Carley asked. “I don’t think shampoo and rinse are listed in
your deputy duties.”
“Maybe not, but emergencies certainly are. This one might not fall
in the realm of cataclysmic, but it’s at least pushing an urgent
predicament,” he said, grinning as he rolled up his sleeves.
“Oh, he can do me,” Evelyn said, shooting up out of her chair.
Realizing what she’d said, she tucked her chin demurely toward her
chest. “I mean mine. I mean he can rinse my hair.”
“See?” he said, flashing her a grin as he motioned Evelyn toward
the sink. “And I do have a sister, so I’m not totally without
knowledge of hair and styling skills.”
 “I don’t want you to get permanent solution on your shirt though,”
Evelyn told him. “Just to be safe, you should probably take it off.”
Another random document with
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“backside.” A few tentative shots were fired, but apparently some
wisely dispensed liquor accomplished more than force. In any event
the New Englanders were “entertained,” one way or another, first at
Fort Elfsborg by the Swedes and then at Fort Nassau by the Dutch,
and in the end they were persuaded to turn back. They returned to
Boston in their pinnace, at great loss to the chagrined investors in
the enterprise.

Under Johan Printz’s able direction Swedish trade flourished

throughout the Delaware valley. Fine cargoes of beaver and other
pelts were shipped across the sea. Some went to Sweden, but the
market was never good there for foreign pelts and most were
auctioned in Holland. Great quantities, however, were sold locally in
America for needed supplies. And, we are told, “otter coats” and
“elkskin trousers” were common articles of dress among the Swedes
themselves.
Like the Pilgrims, the Swedes could not have maintained
themselves but for the beaver trade. Their attempts to cultivate
tobacco were unsuccessful. Neither did they grow sufficient food for
themselves. And little enough help came from home. For nearly six
years after the winter of 1647-48 there was no relief ship nor even
any official word from Sweden to its earnest governor in America. A
relief expedition sent out in 1649 was wrecked en route in the
Spanish West Indies, its people tortured and enslaved. Printz had to
depend on his Dutch and English neighbors for supplies. And there
was only one thing of value to give them in exchange for this
subsistence—beaver.
The problem of the Swedes was to monopolize the Indian beaver
trade while depending upon competitors not only for subsistence
supplies but for the very trucking merchandise required for the Indian
trade. Dutch traders, as well as English, were therefore welcome on
the Delaware so long as the Swedes could act as middlemen
between them and the natives who had the beaver pelts.
 English traders of this type were particularly active in New Sweden
—Virginians and New Englanders, and some roving independents
like Isaac Allerton, the former Pilgrim father who made so much
trouble for his associates at Plymouth. Allerton, as a matter of fact,
made his headquarters at this time with the Dutch at Fort
Amsterdam.
John Wilcox and William Cox were among other colonial
merchants who purveyed fowling pieces, sailcloth, duffels, cheese
and brandy to the Swedes in exchange for beaver skins. They also
provided Printz with trucking goods, such as knives, kettles, axes,
hoes, cloth, red coral and sewan, or wampum. Among many such
entries in the company books, reported by Dr. Amandus Johnson, is
one for 220 yards of sewan purchased from an Englishman for 140
beaver skins valued at 800 florins.
William Whiting, a Hartford merchant, collected 1,069¹⁄₂ pounds of
beaver worth 4,277 florins from the Swedes on one trading
expedition to the Delaware in 1644. Captain Turner and Allerton,
who made frequent trips there, purveyed cloth, barley seed and
other grain, millstones, beer, leather and wampum for the Indian
trade, all in exchange for the Swedes’ beaver. Several trading boats
were also sold to the Swedes, a small one being exchanged for 98
skins, and larger barks bringing five to ten times as many.
Printz frequently sent his own people with beaver to New
Amsterdam, and even to New England, to buy trade goods,
livestock, rye, corn, lime, and other supplies. His chief commissary,
Hendrick Huygen, usually headed up the expeditions to Manhattan.
At the Dutch capital the going rate for corn, which was not always to
be obtained direct from the Indians, was one beaver pelt for three
bushels. Evidently the Swedes found this exchange less onerous
than toiling with the plow.
On one trip to the Dutch capital Huygen bought seven oxen for
124 beaver skins valued at 868 florins, a cow for 22 skins worth 154
florins, and 75 bushels of rye for 32 skins valued at seven florins
each. It cost him only ten skins to get this livestock to New Sweden,
five being paid out to two Hollanders who led some of the oxen
cross-country, and five to the Governor of New Netherland whose
sloop delivered the remainder on the Delaware. On another trip, in
addition to oxen, Huygen bought a horse for thirty skins. He even
settled for his expenses at New Amsterdam with beaver, paying out
nine skins for board and five for lodgings to the inn-keeper on one
occasion, while having the storm-torn sails of his boat repaired for
another six skins.
The Swedes never did root their colony in agriculture. For one
thing, it was just too easy to rest the entire economy on the beaver
trade, and somehow the habit persisted even after the fur frontier
had passed into the hinterland. A visiting Indian convert from New
France once accused them of being more concerned with fur trading
than with converting his red kinsmen to Christianity. The charge was
true enough. It might have been leveled in fact at almost any
colonials of the time. But probably it wasn’t even of passing interest
to the beaver-hungry Swedes.
A lesser reason for the agricultural failure was that there never
seemed to be enough Swedes to man farms. The total population of
the colony—soldiers, traders, farmers, servants, women, and
children—amounted to no more than two hundred fifty at any time
during Governor Printz’s tenure. And losses by death were not offset
by reinforcements from home. In the spring of 1648 a census of all
male inhabitants of age counted up to only seventy-nine. These
seventy-nine were not all Swedes by a large number.
When Peter Stuyvesant arrived in America as governor of the
Dutch, the inherent numerical weakness of the Swedes was at once
apparent to him, for he was an experienced soldier. He also knew
that because of changing conditions abroad there was less reason
for being so friendly and neighborly. With the war against the
Catholics drawing to a close, the alliance was breaking up, and
Holland was no longer favoring Swedish shipping. The two countries
were becoming bitter competitors.
The new Dutch governor had a personality that was every bit as
colorful as that of his soldier counterpart in New Sweden. Having lost
a leg in action, and being of an arrogant and tyrannical nature,
Stuyvesant stamped about affectedly on a silver-banded pegleg,
swishing a rattan cane to emphasize his commands. But he was also
as zealously nationalistic and as company-minded in the
administration of his colonial post as was Johan Printz.
It was predestined that hot-tempered “Big Belly” and autocratic
“Peg-Leg” would clash. They did—almost immediately.
Printz, it appears, replaced his blockhouse on Province Island with
a much stronger installation, Fort Korsholm, armed with cannon and
manned with a garrison of soldiers. Andries Hudde, who had
succeeded Jan Jansen as Dutch commissary on the South River,
reported to Stuyvesant that he was now absolutely cut off from the
Schuylkill and that the Swedes were “hindering” all other Dutch trade
with the Indians in the river valley.
Furthermore, Hudde said, the Swedes had spoiled the trade
anyway, for the Indians now insisted on two fathoms of white sewan
and one fathom of purple sewan for a beaver. And, since a fathom
was commonly estimated as the span of a man’s outstretched arms,
the natives were sending “the largest and tallest among them to
trade with us.” This made the barter “rather too much against” him,
the Dutch commissary complained, as every fathom amounted “to
three ells!”
Stuyvesant, to Hudde’s surprise, instructed him to take the
initiative against the Swedes, telling him it was now well known that
the Swedes could expect no succor from home, and that he should
go into the Schuylkill and erect a stronghold there for his own
traders.
Backed by this authority the South River commissary, who was of
an aggressive nature anyway, went into the Schuylkill with
enthusiasm. In May of 1648 he began building a log house
surrounded by palisades at Passyunk, on the lands purchased by
Corssen in 1633. He called it Fort Beversrede (Beaver Road Fort).
Located within the limits of present-day Philadelphia, on the east
bank of the Schuylkill, Fort Beversrede not only challenged the
Swedish monopoly of the Schuylkill trade but it restrained some of
Printz’s people who were now probing east and north of that stream.
 Governor Printz reacted violently as might have been expected.
He sent out several chastising expeditions of armed men who tore
down palisades, destroyed surrounding forests and burned houses
being built about the new Dutch trading post. But there doesn’t
appear to have been too much blood shed, and the whole affair
ended up amusingly enough when the Swedes constructed a
blockhouse of their own on the riverside within a dozen feet of the
gates to the Dutch fort. Evidently the six nervous Hollanders who
manned Fort Beversrede looked the other way during this operation.
In any case, after the Swedish blockhouse went up, thirty-five feet in
length, the Hollanders in their fort didn’t have “the sight of the water
on the kill” that they were supposed to dominate.
It is easy to imagine that this was almost too much for Stuyvesant.
However, he was cautioned by his employers in Holland to arm
himself with some patience before using force against the Swedes.
But then, becoming increasingly irritated by further trespasses, the
governor determined to send both ships and troops to the South
River as a convincing show of strength. In 1651 he dispatched
eleven ships with arms and supplies around the coast, while he
marched overland with 120 soldiers to Fort Nassau where the fleet
met him.
There ensued much on-the-spot argument among the Dutch, the
Swedes, and the Indians, about their overlapping land titles. But it all
ended up with the Dutch becoming the masters of the South River,
their troops being much the most persuasive consideration in the
case.
Stuyvesant sailed down the river to a likely site on the west bank
just below Fort Christina, landed two hundred men and erected a
commanding fortification which he named Fort Casimir. Located on a
peninsula, near present New Castle, Fort Casimir was 210 feet long
and was mounted with twelve guns, some of which came from Fort
Nassau, now dismantled. Two warships were also stationed in the
river and several English trading-boats were taken as prizes since
England and Holland were at war. All traders on the South River
were now compelled to pay duty to New Netherland.
 Printz’s situation deteriorated rapidly as Dutch trading factors
overran New Sweden, monopolizing the beaver commerce. With
pitifully few remaining subjects, desertions having cut the total
population to less than a hundred souls, the governor had to leave
Forts Elfsborg and Korsholm unmanned and rotting. Now that he
was without trade goods even the Indians turned against him, boldly
committing depredations within the limits of the colony.
The people, growing mutinous, openly accused “Big Belly” of
avarice and brutality. They claimed that by their enforced labor he
had filled his storehouses at Tinicum Island with skins for his
personal profit. But he tore up a petition of their grievances and had
their leader convicted of treason. Then he heatedly dared the others
to complain again.
As to the charge of brutality, things were probably no worse nor
any better than the time a party of Indians was hired in New Sweden
to track down some settlers who deserted. These luckless subjects,
who had first tried unsuccessfully to desert to the Dutch, fled toward
the English settlements on the Chesapeake. The savages did their
job well—and efficiently—bringing back only the heads of those who
resisted capture.
The Swedish governor could only protest the Dutch usurpation of
his life-giving trade in the face of the military odds against him and
his own internal problems. His government was left intact however,
and he bided the time that reinforcements would arrive. But none
came, nor even any word. In the end he asked to be relieved. When
there was no reply to his request Johan Printz, at last disillusioned
and completely frustrated, finally took it on his own authority in 1653
to relinquish his post and sail for home.
Once, some years earlier when Printz was a young officer in the
Army of Sweden, he had been dismissed from the service for
surrendering his post without authority. When he left America under
similar conditions, it is said that he took the precaution of getting a
letter of recommendation from Peter Stuyvesant to the Dutch West
India Company, just as insurance.
 The year after Printz sailed away reinforcements did at long last
arrive in New Sweden, and with them came a new and impetuous
governor named Johan Rising. Finding Fort Casimir in the
embarrassing position of being without gunpowder and greatly
underestimating the general situation of the Dutch in New
Netherland, Rising made the mistake of reducing the fort to Swedish
rule and pledging the loyalty of some of the Dutchmen there.
Infuriated, the Directors of the Dutch West India Company sent a
fleet of ships and two hundred veteran soldiers across the sea to
their governor at New Amsterdam. They ordered him to gather all
possible additional forces before the Swedes could be reinforced
and “exert every nerve to avenge that injury, not only by restoring
affairs to their former situation, but by driving the Swedes from every
side of the river.” Stuyvesant responded with alacrity. In September
of 1655 he was under sail for the South River with a fleet of seven
armed ships, land artillery for besieging batteries, and several
hundred soldiers.
Captain Sven Skute who was the commandant at Fort Casimir,
now called Fort Trinity by the Swedes, had greatly strengthened the
fortifications there in anticipation of the attack. Shot and powder
were stored in good supply, as were all other necessities for
defense. Skute had written orders from the Council at Fort Christina
not to let the enemy pass.
But, when the Dutch flotilla sailed up the river and anchored above
the fort, Sven Skute didn’t fire a shot. Stuyvesant was permitted to
mount his batteries ashore without interference. After the Swedish
stronghold had been completely surrounded and cut off, Skute sent
out word that his men were going to defend the position. Governor
Stuyvesant replied that if a single Hollander became a casualty there
would be no quarter for any Swede in the fort. Whereupon Captain
Skute capitulated under terms that permitted him to walk out with his
“personal property.” His men had mutinied, it appears.
Leaving Captain Dirck Smith in command of the fort, now renamed
Fort Amstel, the Dutch moved on to the Christina. There Stuyvesant
repeated his maneuver, investing the fort and the entire Swedish
settlement. While he and Rising parleyed, Dutch soldiers pillaged the
countryside as far north as Tinicum Island, where Johan Printz’s
ambitious daughter, married to a pliable husband, now held forth at
Printz Hall in the style of her father. The Hollanders killed livestock,
plundered houses and left the women “stripped naked” in their beds,
or so it was said.
Governor Rising’s situation was hopeless. He had only a small
supply of ammunition, most of it having been sent to Fort Trinity. He
was faced not only with the Dutch guns pointing at his fort but with
increasing desertions to the enemy. Stuyvesant was demanding
complete evacuation of the position or the oath of loyalty to Holland
from all Swedish subjects.
In the end the Swedish governor could only agree to surrender,
with transportation guaranteed for those who did not wish to remain
as Dutch subjects. The governor himself did not fare too badly. It
appears that his private property, like that of Captain Skute, was
respected under the terms of the capitulation and that it was
promised he would be landed in “England or France.”
New Sweden was no more. No longer did the Dutch at New
Amsterdam have to worry about Swedish competition on their South
River, much less the envelopment of Fort Orange in the north by
Swedish penetration of the hinterland.
What the Dutch had to worry about now, other than the Indians in
the vicinity of Manhattan who were getting a bit out of hand, were
Englishmen—especially the New England traders pressing them in
the north. And that was becoming quite a worry!
 XV
New Netherland Threatened Without
and Within
NOWHERE in America was there a better situation for a great fur
emporium than Manhattan Island. There, converging into a protected
harbor which was easily accessible to seagoing ships, were arteries
of fur traffic that tapped both hinterland and coastal trade. Indeed,
the beaver trade that originated at Manhattan in the round-bellied
Dutch ships of the seventeenth century was the genesis of a
commerce that was to make New York the greatest seaport in the
world.
But, although the Hollanders at New Amsterdam had this material
advantage and were exploiting it with all their energy, their
occupation of New Netherland was insecure to say the least. In
English eyes they were squatters on English territory, and the
English had the physical means to do something about it whenever
they wished.
Logically, of course, the Englishmen had a very poor case. In the
light of their own Elizabethan theory that occupation of a territory
was necessary to back up any claim of possession, the Dutch title to
New Netherland was certainly valid. The Hollanders had searched
out and settled the country. The Englishmen had not bothered to do
either. Yet, stubbornly, they had never once conceded Dutch
sovereignty.
Naturally, they had to come up with a new interpretation of
Elizabeth’s historic pronouncement. It took the following line of
reasoning. James I had long since defined Virginia as extending
from the 34th to the 45th parallel, and, in fact, had granted it by
charter to two great joint-stock companies of London and Plymouth
before Captain Hudson ever went out to America for the Dutch. Such
an act of sovereignty could be considered equivalent to taking
possession of that territory! Therefore the Dutch were intruders!!
And, a quarter of a century after this “act of sovereignty,” parts of
Dutch New Netherland—Connecticut, Long Island and the west bank
of the Delaware River—were being reconveyed by the original
English patentees or the king himself, all without benefit of having
yet been settled by Englishmen.
That no official action was taken to eject the Hollanders can be
attributed to the alliances of the Thirty Years’ War. However, the time
was not too far away when England and Holland, relieved of their
compacts, were to become deadly rivals. Already, in fact, patriotic
Englishmen smarted with the knowledge that a foreign country which
had to import its timber for shipbuilding, and one which had so
recently been helped to independence by them, was growing rich on
a carrying trade that should be in British bottoms. The ultimate
conquest of New Netherland was a foregone conclusion as far as
they were concerned.
Meanwhile, pressure on New Netherland from individual traders
with the backing of London and New England merchants prepared
the way for the anticipated military action.

The pressure on New Netherland began in 1633 when a trading

vessel from England invaded the Hollanders’ North River for furs.
Her name was the William. She was the first English ship ever to
ascend the Hudson. At the time, the annual returns there were
estimated at 16,000 beaverskins, and no one was better qualified to
appreciate this rich business than the factor in charge of the William;
for, he was none other than a former Dutch commissary on the
Hudson, Jacob Eelkens, who himself had driven a great trade with
the Indians at Fort Orange. In 1623 however, after incurring the
displeasure of the West India Company, he had been summarily
discharged. Now he was in the employ of English merchants, William
Cloberry and Company of London, and he was of a mind to square
accounts.
Defying both Governor Wouter van Twiller and the threatening
guns on Manhattan, Eelkens proclaimed haughtily that the Hudson
River belonged to England and then proceeded upstream. Van
Twiller didn’t fire on him. In fact, the irresolute Dutch governor
broached a cask of wine while he deliberated on the situation. Not
until he had been roundly twitted for timidity by his drinking
companions did he acquire enough spirit to dispatch three ships with
some soldiers after the renegade Hollander. By the time this force
caught up with Eelkens, he was anchored near Fort Orange, where
he had established a well-stocked trucking station ashore and was
enjoying a lucrative trade for beaver with the natives, all at the
expense of the frustrated Dutch commissary there.
Van Twiller’s soldiers, upon their arrival, arrested the turncoat
interloper, and the William was convoyed back down the river to
Manhattan where all the pelts aboard were confiscated. Then
Eelkens, protesting loudly, was escorted with his empty ship out of
the Narrows, never again to bother his countrymen on the Hudson.
But this same year, 1633, there was pressure of a more serious
nature on the Dutch. It came overland, and it was not to be repulsed
so easily.
The fur traders of New England hankered for the beaver that
abounded in the valley of the Connecticut River where the
Hollanders were taking annually some 10,000 skins. Of course
Dutch Captain Adrien Block had discovered and explored the
Connecticut, or “Fresh Water” as he called it, in 1614. And since fur
traders from New Amsterdam bartered traditionally on the river, even
establishing a temporary trading post and laying out the foundations
of Fort Good Hope near the site of present-day Hartford in 1623,
there was not much question in their minds about the jurisdiction of
New Netherland. Admittedly, however, they had made no permanent
settlements.
Neither had the English who now coveted the valley’s beaver
meadows. However, they had lately done some exploring and liked
what they found. Edward Winslow of New Plymouth went up the river
in 1632 and was so impressed that he selected a site for a house.
And John Winthrop of the Bay Colony let it out that because his
colony extended “to the south sea on the west parte,” the
Connecticut River, or the greater part of it anyway, belonged to
Massachusetts under its charter.
So the Hollanders at New Amsterdam, a bit alarmed, bestirred
themselves to complete the fort which had been commenced by
them some ten years earlier. After buying “most of the lands on both
sides” of the Connecticut River from the Indians, they built a strong
house of yellow bricks at their old trading post and set up two
cannon there to secure the river above them.
But, even while their commissary, Jacob van Curler, was building
this fort in 1633, it was being enveloped by the New Englanders. Fur
traders from Massachusetts Bay fought their way straight west
through the wilderness that summer to reach the upper Connecticut
valley north of Fort Good Hope. In the fall a party of Pilgrims from
New Plymouth sailed up the river from the south for the same
purpose.
It was John Oldham, an adventurous trader of ten years
experience in New England, who pioneered the way for the English.
With three companions he blazed what was to become known as the
“Old Connecticut Path” from Watertown in Massachusetts to the
Connecticut River. On his return he made an enthusiastic report on
the valley and its beaver meadows, while delegations of Mohegans
from the Connecticut valley offered alliances and otherwise made
things most attractive to prospective settlers. They wanted the men
of Massachusetts, or any other white men with guns, to settle among
them. It was the only way they knew to even scores with their recent
conquerors, the Pequots.
There were 4,000 Englishmen clustered about Massachusetts Bay
at the time and quite a few were of a mind to get away. Puritanical
intolerance, given free rein in this new American colony, was making
too much of a strait jacket out of life for many of them. Connecticut
sounded almost too good to be true. Some of the bold ones began
making plans to migrate to the bounteous valley the following year.
In the meantime Winslow’s people at New Plymouth moved more
quickly. With them fresh beaver territory was always a pressing
necessity. Their very survival as a colony depended on their fur
exports. They also sensed profit in taking sides with the Mohegans.
Whereas the Massachusetts men cautiously avoided any
complicating alliances with the Connecticut valley Indians, the
Pilgrims in their desperate anxiety for pelts were quite willing, as
usual, to involve themselves in inter-tribal disputes. In this case it led
to most unhappy results for the traders, the farmers, and their
families. Some have claimed that it was the genesis of the fierce war
between the Pequots and the white men that exploded a few years
later.
In any event, by early September of 1633 Captain William Holmes
of New Plymouth, carrying a prefabricated house frame in “a great
new bark,” was on his way up the Connecticut River. Undaunted by
the Dutch fort and the Hollanders, who “threatened [him] hard, yet ...
shot not,” Captain Holmes sailed past Fort Good Hope and erected
his house above it at Windsor. There his people established a
trading post that prospered at once on upriver furs at the expense of
the Dutch traders below them. Strongly palisading this post, Holmes
and his company then stood firm against a force of seventy
Hollanders who were sent from New Amsterdam to eject them.
The Pilgrim coup was short-lived however. Competition from
Boston had even more to do with this than Indian troubles, for in
another three years a wholesale exodus from Massachusetts to the
Connecticut was under way, over 800 people already having moved
west to the fruitful valley. In the forefront of this migration were the
fur traders, but farmers followed them to found Wethersfield and
other towns. Invading Windsor, they swallowed up the small band of
their Pilgrim brethren there.
The Puritans completely surrounded the isolated Dutch trading
post at Hartford. But, although the New Englanders on the
Connecticut at this time outnumbered the population of all New
Netherland, they made no attempt to oust the garrison of Hollanders
in their midst. Some twenty men, sent out by the younger Winthrop
from Boston, did however take possession of the Dutch claims about
the mouth of the Connecticut. There they tore down the arms of the
States General which had been affixed to a tree and contemptuously
engraved “a ridiculous face in their place.” When a Dutch sloop
came from New Amsterdam to dislodge them, it was compelled to
withdraw in the face of two cannon threateningly mounted ashore.
The Boston men then went about constructing fortifications and
buildings which they called Fort Saybrook.
After that the English had control of the river and, as they thought,
easy access also to the beaver trade “of that so pleasant and
commodious country of Erocoise before us.”
One Puritan merchant, William Pynchon, who was to found a great
fortune in the Indian trade, now spearheaded the economic attack on
New Netherland’s northern flank. Because of his relentless search
for fur he did more than any other man to defeat the Dutch traders
and to expand the frontiers of Massachusetts.
William Pynchon was one of the original company of twenty-seven
grantees of Massachusetts. For their concession these adventurers
were committed to pay the crown one-fifth of all the gold and silver
ore found within the limits of the grant. Pynchon, however, wasn’t
interested in ore. He was of a more practical bent of mind. He traded
with the Indians near Boston from the start, supplying them with
guns and ammunition in exchange for their beaver.
Although this trade in guns was carried on with the court’s
approval, Pynchon was severely criticized for doing it, fined in fact.
Annoyed about this, dissatisfied anyway with the dwindling fur trade
about the bay, and not being particularly in sympathy with the rigid
Calvinism of the church he had helped to found there, Pynchon’s
eyes turned westward.
This keen-minded, resolute man was probably one of John
Oldham’s financial backers when that extraordinary adventurer
pioneered the Connecticut Path. Pynchon himself made a trip up the
Connecticut River by shallop in 1635 and chose a location for a
trading post near the Indian village of Agawam. Somewhat above the
other river towns which were being laid out, this strategic site was
relied upon to intercept most of the Indian trade from the north and
west.
Early in 1636 Pynchon with his son-in-law, Henry Smith, led a
group of traders overland to Agawam. They shipped their goods by
water. For 18 fathoms of wampum, and 18 each of coats, hatchets,
hoes and knives, with “two extra coats thrown in for good measure,”
land was purchased from the Indians, and a trading settlement was
established. It wasn’t too long before every one was calling this
trading post Springfield, in honor of its founder’s home town in
England.
In the resolutions which were framed for the government of
Springfield a provision was shrewdly included to limit the population.
This was intended to prevent an influx of farmers who would spoil
the fur trade. Actually, the founder brought out only twelve families.
As a result of his plan the main business of Springfield for many
years was the beaver trade.
There was a provision in the resolutions, too, for obtaining a
minister, Pynchon himself acting in this capacity until the Reverend
George Moxon was finally installed. It is recorded of this good
parson that when he did arrive he preached a sermon that lasted for
twenty-eight days. It is also a matter of record that an early purchase
for the church was an hourglass. But whether its purpose was to
impose a time limit or to insure good measure is not stated.
Travelling extensively by canoe and on horseback, William
Pynchon bartered with many tribes for beaver, otter, marten, mink,
muskrat, raccoon, lynx, and fox. And, tactfully using Algonquin tribes
as middlemen, it wasn’t too long before he tapped the Iroquois trade.
By 1640 he had established one of his agents, Thomas Cooper, at
Woronoco, later the site of Westfield, “where the Indians brought not
only their own furs, but also furs which they obtained from the
Mohawks.” When this happened, the Dutch no longer had a
monopoly of the furs of the Iroquois.
 Of course Pynchon’s tremendous gains meant some real losses to
the new towns below Springfield, which in 1639 had created a
government of their own when they drew up the Fundamental Orders
of Connecticut. In an effort to checkmate Pynchon, and bring the
trade of the valley to Hartford instead, Connecticut now granted to
Governor Edward Hopkins and William Whiting “liberty of free trade
at Woronoco and at any place thereabouts ... all others to be
restrained for the terme of seven years....” But Massachusetts came
to Pynchon’s rescue, resisted the Connecticut grab, and eventually
established through the Commissioners of the United Colonies that
Woronoco was within its bounds.
Later, the Connecticut people tried another tack. They declared an
impost on all pelts and other goods that Pynchon shipped down the
river, a tax that could have ruined him. However, they voted to
remove this excise when the Massachusetts authorities, in
retaliation, levied a large duty on Connecticut goods coming into
Boston harbor. And William Pynchon went on to expand the fur
frontier of Massachusetts to the north and the west, and through his
beaver trade to become one of the richest men in New England.

Meanwhile, the Puritan migration was taking other avenues of

expansion in the direction of New Netherland, along the shores of
Long Island Sound. These routes, too, followed the paths of fur
traders who as usual broke through the wilderness to make pacts
with the natives or to fuse the wars that cleared the way for
settlement.
The Narragansett country and Long Island Sound were of course
traditional Dutch trading preserves. But as early as 1632, New
Plymouth established a truckhouse at Sowamset, now Barrington,
Rhode Island, and in the following year daring John Oldham, filled
with “vast conceits of extraordinary gaine,” was driving a trade on his
own account much farther to the west in Long Island Sound. Oldham
did business with both the Pequots and the Narragansetts, the latter
taking so kindly to him and his trucking goods that they offered him
free land for the establishment of a permanent trading post among
them.
Three years later however, on a trading voyage in the Sound,
Oldham was murdered at Block Island by Indians under Pequot
control. His boat was plundered and two English boys with him at the
time were carried off into captivity. This episode fused the Pequot
War, the chief results of which was a bloody purge by the New
Englanders that cleared the shores of the Sound for settlement.
The campaign commenced against the Pequots in 1637 quickly
became a hundredfold more terrible than the murderous episode the
white men set out originally to avenge. Under the leadership of
Captain John Endicott of Massachusetts, a devastating blow was
first delivered at Block Island. A hundred men went there with him in
three ships. They burned the native wigwams, spoiled the corn, and
slew all the Indians they could catch. Then they repaired to the
mainland, where they invaded the heart of the Pequot country and
repeated their brutal chastisement of the red men.
This grim Puritan punishment came close to uniting all the Indians
in those parts against the English. Only the diplomacy of Roger
Williams, who traded for furs with the Narragansetts while preaching
the gospel, prevented the great Narragansett tribe from joining the
Pequots in the fierce revenge they now took against any isolated
Englishmen they could find. Meanwhile the Pequots scourged the
countryside—until, by a final campaign, the New Englanders set out
to remove this powerful tribe from the face of the earth!
An army composed mostly of mercenary savages was assembled
by the Englishmen for this gory task. It originated with a party of
ninety white men from the Connecticut River towns under the
command of John Mason. Together with an equal number of
Mohegans, they went down to Fort Saybrook to meet Captain John
Underhill who had been sent from Massachusetts with twenty
soldiers. This nucleous force then proceeded to the Bay of the
Narragansetts where it was joined by some 500 of those savages, all
bent on scalps and loot. From the bay the army marched overland to
the Mystic River to attack one of the chief Pequot towns, occupied at
the time by some six or seven hundred men, women and children.
The English and their Indian allies took the inhabitants of the town
by surprise. They put the torch to the wigwams before the sleeping
natives could offer any resistance. All who were not burned to death
were slaughtered as they tried to escape—all except seven who
managed to escape and seven others who were taken captive. It
was a terrible affair—for the Pequots. Only two Englishmen died in
the encounter.
Another main body of the Pequots was routed soon afterward. But
that did not end the bloody harassment. A month later, a large force
from Massachusetts under Captain Stoughton, together with Captain
Mason’s Connecticut men, surrounded all that remained of the once
powerful tribe. This occurred in a swamp at Fairfield where the
remnant of the tribe had taken refuge. The warriors put up a brave
fight, but the odds were too great against them. Those few who
escaped this final butchery were divided among the Mohegans and
the Narragansetts, never more to be called Pequots.
The shores of the Sound west of Fort Saybrook were open now to
settlers. A wave of migration from Boston resulted in the founding of
New Haven, Stratford, Norwalk, Stamford, and other towns. The
New Haven people, forming their own government, even spread
across the Sound to Long Island which, of course, had long been
occupied only by the Hollanders, whose traders exploited the natives
there for the wampum so essential in the beaver trade.
To halt this encroachment on the very nerve center of their trading
territory, the Dutch hurriedly purchased from the Indians all the
country that remained open between Manhattan and the oncoming
English, acquiring legal title to additional lands on Long Island as far
west as Oyster Bay as well as to all that triangle of territory between
the Hudson and the Sound south of Norwalk. The latter comprised
much of present Westchester County. However the English
encroachment along the north shore of the Sound, as a practical
matter, was halted no farther east than Greenwich.
 Only in the Narragansett country, after 1640, did the Dutch hang
on to any substantial beaver trade east of Greenwich. Rhode Island,
by then well populated with Englishmen, tried to keep them out.
However, the Dutch simply supplied the Indians there more
generously with rum and guns—in return for beaver. So did some
interloping but enterprising Frenchmen. And so did some of the New
Englanders themselves, for that matter. Nowhere was the
competition for beaver more keen or more dangerous than in Rhode
Island.
English laws at the time sincerely prohibited the sale of liquor or
firearms to the savages. But such laws were difficult to enforce on a
wild frontier where uncontrolled profits could be scooped up so
easily. Roger Williams was later to write that he had “refused the
gain of thousands by such a murderous trade.” Some of his
neighbors in the wilderness and even some of his own trading
associates had no such scruples however.
Richard Smith who became wealthy on the Indian trade was a
man of this stripe. He and Roger Williams, along with John Wilcox,
“a sturring, driving, somewhat unscrupulous fellow,” began trading in
the Narragansett country as early as 1637. Each of them built
trucking houses on the much-traveled Pequot and Narragansett Trail
at the site of present-day Wickford. As trading practices sharpened
over the years, neither Smith nor Wilcox hesitated to meet the
increasing demands of the natives for liquor and powder. Williams
was revolted. In 1651, when he was about to go to England, he sold
his house and trading interests to Smith for 50 pounds sterling. That
left Smith without any competition for this lucrative fur trade, as he
had bought out Wilcox some years earlier.
Men like Smith and Wilcox furnished tinder for many flaming
atrocities in Rhode Island. But their murderous trade was “the most
profitable employment in these parts of America ... by which many
persons of mean degree advanced to considerable estates.” Rhode
Island was truly one of the most fertile of all beaver grounds—while it
lasted. That was until 1660. By then the beaver was all but
exhausted, while, with the help of the white man’s goods, the Indian
trapper was well on the way to destroying himself too.
 It had been the same of course on every fur frontier in America. In
Rhode Island the fateful process of the aborigine’s extinction was
just exaggerated in dreadful degree. As native drinking increased,
atrocities mounted and bloody retaliation followed. Yet, in spite of
this terrible situation, the English themselves came to recognize wine
and spirits as the chief staple of the Indian trade, while futilely putting
new laws on their books intended to limit the natives’ consumption!
For their part the Hollanders never had any compunction about
distributing hot waters or firearms among the savage neighbors of
the New Englanders, who after all seemed bent on taking over all of
New Netherland. Protected by ships, of which the Rhode Islanders
had none, the Hollanders drove a continuing trade at their long-
established posts in Narragansett Bay, especially at Dutchmen’s
Island which they had fortified. As late as 1647 the natives were
transporting their pelts in canoes to Dutchmen’s Island, where it was
said they could lay in a supply of strong waters sufficient to keep an
Indian village in an uproar for a week and acquire all the guns and
powder they wanted. And the Dutch continued to trade in the bay for
some years after that, until the beaver of Rhode Island was almost
exhausted.
In fact at no time, until 1650, did the New Netherlanders give up
any part of their claims south of Cape Cod, even though they hadn’t
been able to stem the overland flood of English traders and settlers.
In 1647 they did seize an Amsterdam ship, trading at New Haven
without a license from the Dutch West India Company, and brought
her into New Amsterdam where she was confiscated in spite of
excited protests from New Haven. On land, however, they were
overwhelmingly outnumbered. Furthermore, troubles at home,
especially with the savages, kept them close to the valley of the
Hudson after 1640.

Curiously enough, the New Netherlanders’ troubles at home

beginning in 1640 sprang largely from their sale of firearms to the
distant Iroquois.